There is sobering news on mobile TV from one of Europe’s most influential television production companies. Announcing the creation of a new mobile division as far back as 2005, Endemol said it would roll out two mobile channels. Now they are scaling that back to one, mad.co.uk reports. There had been fanfare when, reporting 500,000 mobile downloads and six million streamed minutes for its 2005 Big Brother series, the company said it would launch an Extreme Reality Channel and a Comedy Channel – CEO Peter Bazalgette said mobile TV was the “big success” of the year.
Although the intervening period has seen mobile TV packages launch on several networks, Endemol is now scaling back to more closely tie the sole channel, due to launch later this year, to online services. Interactive media director Peter Cowley: “The mobile market hasn’t developed as quickly as we expected. When we created Endemol Mobile we thought that 2006 would be a better year Europe-wide than it was, whereas actually broadband became more important.”
Update: At least five bidders are expected to table their final offers for Telefonica’s 75 percent stake in Endemol, FT.com says. They include Mediaset in a consortium with Endemol founder John de Mol and Goldman Sachs), French private equity group PAI (with former Endemol France head Stephane Courbit), private equity group TH Lee (with Apax Partners, former Endemol exec Tom Barnicoat and Haim Saban) and Mexican TV broadcaster Televisa, working with CBS. Mediaset said it expects the auction to complete next week.